as it is
I am comforted and amazed by how good simplicity feels. After the holidays, when colds, great expectations, and needles from the Christmas tree are everywhere, including one that ended up in my bra the day the tree came down, I am ready to clean and get rid of all of the extra stuff. January arrives and with it, the invitation to clean, purge, renew, recommit and start again. I want to clean my house (which is highly unusual for me) as well as get rid of residual emotional stuff sticking around.
In this sacred space of renewal, the time is precious, fragile, and ripe with possibility. We are waking up and also trying to slow down a bit. To simplify, and to appreciate, accept, and love our imperfectly perfect selves a bit more. It can be a challenging task while living in a society hellbent on telling us we need to be different. Keep spending money! Fix all the shit that is wrong! You can do it! You know, the “new year, new you” business.
But what if there isn’t anything to fix? What if WE aren’t broken?
Fixing and addressing are different. Maybe, something needs attention but not necessarily fixing. Fixing implies that there is something wrong with us. Healing implies that we are already whole. Healing draws on our strengths and relies on what is right with us to guide our growth.
Truthfully, of course, there are plenty of things that need to be changed, collectively and personally. One, being, me not eating cookies for breakfast. But I don’t want to come at this from a place of guilt or deprivation. I want to address it with a sense of gratitude, of loving my body for how hard it works to keep me healthy. I realize this sounds paradoxical and it is just like life. I think it boils down to intention.
Every time I get overly wiggy or annoyed, a little voice reminds me of the big world inside the word, a c c e p t a n c e. The rub is always, because I want someone or something to be different than it is, I suffer. I don’t want to be sick. I don’t want someone to ignore my texts. I don’t want someone to think I am an ass when I am too tired to say hi. I don’t want climate change. But, there, in the annoyance of resistance to what is, is the option to soften a tad, breathe deeply, and choose to come back to the heart again and again. To surrender to the present moment. As it is. From this place, we can choose to respond accordingly instead of react automatically. We engage the wisdom of the heart and the logic of the mind to find the happy medium.
The great spiritual teacher and author of the beloved book, Be Here Now, Ram Dass, died, recently. In the past, when I read his words, “we are all just walking each other home,” I took it quite literally as in we are here for just a short time, keeping each other company, on our way to our final destination.
I still see it this way but I also feel these powerful words mean something else to me too. When we sit together in our times of rawness, pain, and messiness as well as our joy and laughter, we are walking, hand in hand, down the driveway, right through the front door to our internal and eternal homes. When we listen with our whole beings, when we are empathetic and compassionate, gentle and forgiving, we are turning on the lights so we can see better in the dark. We are getting warm under the blanket. We are sharing giggles and tears over tea or wine, around the fire, underneath the vastness of the stars, in our tiny little place in the universe. Listening, sharing, laughing, and loving is what takes us home. It is about acceptance. And it is this simple, cozy remedy and reminder that makes home a place worth visiting and staying awhile. Being together heals.